I wish to make it perfectly clear, on behalf of our people, that we accept no condition of inferiority as compared with European people. Two distinct civilisations are represented by the respective races.
On one hand we have the civilisation of necessity and on the other hand civilisation coincident with a bounty of supply of all the requirements of the human race.
That the European people by the arts of war destroyed a more ancient civilisation is freely admitted, and that by their vices and diseases our people have been decimated is also patient, but neither of these facts are evidence of superiority.
Quite the contrary the members of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association have also noted the strenuous efforts of the trade union leaders to attain the conditions which existed in our country at the time of invasion by Europeans – the men only worked when necessary – we called no man ‘master’ and we had no ‘king’.”
– Fred Maynard (Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association) to the Premier of New South Wales, Jack Lang, on receipt of a letter dated 23 August 1927.
